The Validity of Socialism By Fernando Buen Abad Domínguez

It would be enough to listen to the hatred that the bourgeoisie injects into its denouncements against Socialism to deduce that there is something very good for human beings that implies ending the hierarchy of oppressors in order to proceed to a Socialist system capable of eradicating the interests of capital over the human being, as well as eradicating the entire individualist, racist, exclusionary and oppressive burden that has made our existence bitter for too long. To establish as a priority society itself, has been a struggle that is increasingly valid according to the ecological and humanistic ravages that capitalism has caused throughout its history. Realism reaffirms the validity of Socialism.

The bourgeoisie (and some “parrots” trained by it) that insist on claiming Socialism, Communism and Marxism dead is an aberration. Time, money and effort are invested heavily in these propaganda “funeral services”. Publicists, academics and mercenaries of all kinds are paid to convince us of the “failure” of an economic, political and cultural system which we have not seen develop (to put it allegorically) by even 10%. In contrast to this “failure,” Capitalism is portrayed as a successful system that has triumphed in an exemplary and resounding manner. “They talk about the failure of socialism, but where is the success of capitalism in Africa, Asia and Latin America?” Fidel Castro.

Greed reigns over social interest. While Capitalism is, according to its macabre outcomes, a generalized nightmare that each day pushes the planet and human beings towards a collapse obscured by wars, terrorism, chaos and instability of every kind, the natural and labor resources are concentrated in a few hands. A few families and companies control most of the world’s economic activities. The human species lives under a rampant pauperization while monopolization reaches unhealthy levels for all forms of life; and the differences between rich and poor increase ruthlessly, shamelessly and with impunity. Insecurity for the dispossessed is multiplied and expressions of discontent are repressed. The evidence is as damning as it is abundant.

It is crucial to resolve the Labor-Capital contradiction that hijacks productive forces around the world and destroys them in an irrational and wanton manner, but such contradiction must be resolved with an intelligent and participatory planning system that allows humanity to overcome all problems and develop to a profoundly new level of civilization and culture. Capitalism is a socio-economic system whose raison d’être serves only a few oppressors, “armed to the teeth”, who in the obstinacy of enriching themselves without limits are destroying everything and bringing us to a state that involves irreversible damage to humanity. But they portray it as if it was the best thing that has ever happened to us.

Socialism is a force that allows us to transform reality, driven by social forces that are united and organized in equalitarian ways. An irreducible Socialism without bureaucracy and without State totalitarianism. A Socialism capable of changing the order of reality in order to definitively banish social classes and all forms of oppression. A non-utopian Socialism. A scientific Socialism. That is to say, without dogmas. That which Marx described in his Manifesto.

A Socialism that puts an end to all confusion, disorientation or dispersion of the emancipatory movement of the working class, that is capable of uniting forces against capitalism so as not to duplicate it and to prevent it from surviving in its most lavish disguises. That it is capable of opening a transforming movement with depth and without exclusions, where all the movements that struggle for the emancipation of humanity are admitted. Socialism to end the dictatorship of Capital, or it will end us. Without extenuating factors, without deviations, without mirages, without illusions. Socialism is valid because it is necessary for humanity to be able to solve all its problems and escalate its historical development without class burden, without complexes and without oppressors. Socialism is valid because it is a necessity for the human species. And there are no alternative solutions, the objective dilemma is: Socialism or Barbarism.

Socialism as a radicalization of love for life… capable of transforming each other by transforming oneself. Not as a system that must be imposed from the outside but as a necessity that must be fully developed from the heart of the historical contradiction of Capital and Work. “A real movement that annuls and surpasses the current state of things”.

Marx. A struggle that arises from the concrete as a possibility not yet realized but realizable. Not as utopian ideal, but as a Scientific Socialism, that is to say, a real emancipatory movement and historical product of that movement. Socialism that is desirable, possible and achievable. Socialism that transforms objective conditions, including the consciousness of its realization, the aspiration to realize it with the corresponding organization and struggle.

Because the validity of Socialism as an objective and subjective requirement to transform the world is a necessity that cannot be stifled by the “squires of the bourgeoisie” who spread puerile pessimism and individualism, irrationalism, utopianism and consumerism. The validity of Socialism cannot be eclipsed by the hopeless nor by the nihilistic fathers of the catastrophism of occasion. Marx said “what it is about is transforming the world” and that involves fighting against capitalism and imperialism but also struggling -with the weapons of critics- so that socialism is not only desirable and possible… achievable. As Sánchez Vázquez emphasized.

We do not hold in our hands the key to future history, but in the praxis of Socialism the most current human desires nest, ready to produce objective and concrete solutions, for the achievement of which it is necessary to permanently struggle. We can undergo adjustments and corrections that are part of the journey, leave behind methods that are useless, but we cannot change the path – the socialist path – because we cannot confuse tactics with principles. And it is that in the validity of Socialism there is a critical component of supreme importance which is, in itself, complex and contradictory precisely because Socialism is not the simple dogmatic application of an “idea” or “immaculate ideal” detached from reality. Quite the opposite. And, perhaps, we do not know, for now, how Socialism will be in its fullness, but we do know what we do not want it to be. And that involves and demands struggle, organization, action. There is nothing more valid.